Microsoft DeepFish drowns September 31st

Just in case anyone of you still uses Microsoft’s proxy-based web browser called Deepfish – the program now faces a fate similar to the one faced by older versions of Blazer for Palm OS.

Microsoft will shut down the proxies on the 31st: as Deepfish relies on its proxies in a fashion similar to Opera Mini, this marks the end of the useful life of the program. The reasons are said to be the advances in mobile web browsing technology on smartphones:

When Live Labs began working on Deepfish, we set out to prove our theory that there was an unmet demand for a better mobile browsing experience than what was available at the time we started the project in 2006. It wasn’t our intent to create a full browser for the preview, but rather simply demonstrate that a novel and simple new user experience was the best way to achieve that. The positive reception and incredible demand for the Deepfish technical preview went a long way towards proving that. And now, thanks in part to Deepfish, many better alternatives are emerging.

Mobile browsing is now advancing to the point where mobile devices rival the desktop—which is what we wanted to see. User experience advances such as usable touch and intuitive zooming interfaces weren’t widely available at the time. Deepfish helped drive that innovation. And now that the marketplace has caught up to where we thought it needed to go and continues to advance.

For our dedicated users still using the technical preview to this day, we are sorry to announce we will be retiring the proxy service on September 31, 2008. The Deepfish client will no longer function after that date as a result.

Users currently using Deepfish have multiple options. If your device supports Java applications, getting Opera Mini is a good option as this also is a low-bandwidth, proxy-based browsers that delivered excellent results at our sister site TamsPalm (review here)

Another possible approach would be a native version of Opera – while this delivers excellent rendering performance, it needs loads of bandwidth/transfer volume and isn’t free…

Related posts:

1. Opera Mini 4.2 – beta out
2. Thomas Ford’s mobile Opera – the interview
3. Microsoft Recite dies on the 31st of December
4. New features for Opera Mini?
5. Opera Mini for iPhone coming, new Opera Mobile in tow